Mage abilities
Mage abilities come in three schools of magic: Arcane, Fire, and Frost, which are usually affected by their tree's respective talents. Mage spells are also usually delineated by their purpose: direct damage, area of effect damage, and utility. Mages are also the only class with the ability to teleport themselves or their group members to the variety of the capital cities. The spells themselves can be classified quite easily by the school they are in. Most Fire spells will have the purpose of heavily damaging an opponent, while the majority of Frost spells are weaker, but usually with an inherent snare built in, which allows them a greater modicum of control. Arcane consists of many of the utility spells, while also supporting either of the other trees through the usage of talent trained abilities. Trainable Spells Talent Spells Talent spells are spells or abilities that are acquired from spending talent points in a certain tree. For example Pyroblast is from the Fire tree while Ice Barrier is from the Frost tree. higher ranks of some talent spells can be bought from the trainer while others only have one rank. Arcane Fire Frost Spells by Function Damage spells Single-target Damage Frostbolt for ice-based single target damage (and a snare); Fire Blast for instant fire damage (and brief cooldown); Fireball for a big whopper of fire damage. Scorch is another fire-based spell which has a short casting time and does good damage. Arcane Missiles are channeled over 5 seconds, with one wave of arcane damage fired each second and can be made uninterrupted by normal damage with talents. Arcane Blast, made available in the BC expansion, adds a buff to the caster that decreases Arcane Blast cast time while increasing mana cost, stacking up to 3 times. With talents, Pyroblast can be acquired. It is basically a slow-casting, huge Fireball with a large DoT component. Area of effect damage This category of spells includes your first AoE spell: Arcane Explosion, an instant cast arcane point blank area of effect; Blizzard, a channeled ground target area of effect cold spell; and Flamestrike, a fire-based ground target area of effect spell. Blast Wave (another talent spell) is an instant cast, point blank area of effect fire spell which dazes the enemy. It has a moderate cooldown (45 seconds). Defensive spells Snares and roots Frostbolt snares the enemy, and Frost Nova is a point blank area of effect root which also inflicts a small amount of damage. Frost Armor (and later, Ice Armor) gives the Mage both an armor buff and a reactive debuff to enemies that hit the Mage in melee, along with a small resistance to ice magic. Attackers are snared and slowed. Mages who go 41 points in to the Arcane tree can get Slow, which snares 60% and also reduces casting speed and reduces ranged attack speed by 60%. Crowd control Polymorph allows the Mage to turn a Humanoid, Beast or Critter into a sheep, pig, turtle, penguin or black cat (depending on the spell and glyph used) for a certain amount of time. Damage absorption Mana Shield allows the Mage to absorb physical and magical damage taken at the cost of mana, at a 2:1 rate (50 damage = 100 mana). A talent can reduce the mana usage. Fire Ward absorbs fire damage; Frost Ward absorbs cold damage. With talents, Ice Barrier can be acquired. It's an instant cast shield that protects you from all damage types up to a limit or 1 minute, whichever comes first. It has a short cooldown (30 seconds). Mage Armor increases resistances to all schools of magic while also allowing mana regeneration during the Five second rule. Utility spells Slow Fall - a "defensive" spell of sorts - protects against falling damage, requires a Light Feather to use. Intellect buffs A very good buff for the Mage (and any class that uses mana) is intellect. Mages have two flavors of these: Arcane Intellect and the group version, Arcane Brilliance. Conjuration Conjure Mana Gem gives you a stone that acts as a free mana potion on a separate cooldown from your other potions. These stones can not be shared. Food and Water of varying levels can also be conjured for restoring health and mana, and is an important preparation for reducing downtime for a solo mage or an entire raid. Evocation The fastest way to regenerate your mana, Evocation can refill the majority of your mana bar over the course of its 8 second cast. Be sure not to be at risk of getting hit, since this is a channeled effect. Teleport Spells Self This includes the Teleport: spells as well as Blink. Portals Creates a portal that can be clicked to instantly move your group to a friendly city. Spells by source All spells not listed here are immediately available at the Mage trainers at the appropriate level. Talent spells *Pyroblast - 11 point Fire tree talent for first rank *Blast Wave - 21 point Fire tree talent for first rank *Combustion - 31 point Fire tree talent *Dragon's Breath - 41 point Fire tree talent for first rank *Icy Veins - 11 point Frost tree talent *Cold Snap - 21 point Frost tree talent *Ice Barrier - 31 point Frost tree talent for first rank *Summon Water Elemental - 41 point Frost tree talent *Presence of Mind - 21 point Arcane tree talent *Arcane Power - 31 point Arcane tree talent *Slow - 41 point Arcane tree talent Quests *Conjure Water VII - Taught by Lorekeeper Lydros in the Dire Maul (North) Library at level 60. *Polymorph: Pig - Taught by Archmage Xylem in Azshara at level 60. Item loot As of Patch 2.0, all of these except Polymorph: Turtle and Conjure Water IX are learnable from the mage trainers in the major cities, and are otherwise deprecated. *Tome of Arcane Brilliance - Level 60 spell learned from a Tome that drops off of random creeps in 5 and 10 man level 60 instances and also from Onyxia. *Tome of Arcane Brilliance 2 - Level 70 spell learned from a Tome that drops in Outland. *Tome of Conjure Food VII - Level 60 rank obtained from a Tome that drops off of Archivist Galford in the Scarlet Bastion of Stratholme. *Tome of Frost Ward V - Level 60 rank obtained from a Tome that drops off of random creeps in 5 and 10 man level 60 instances and also from Onyxia. *Tome of Arcane Missiles VIII - Level 60 rank obtained from a Tome that drops off of bosses in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. *Tome of Fireball XII - Level 60 rank obtained from a Tome that drops off of bosses in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. *Tome of Frostbolt XI - Level 60 rank obtained from a Tome that drops off of bosses in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. *Tome of Polymorph: Turtle - Level 60 spell obtained from a Tome that drops off of Gahz'ranka (the "fish boss") in Zul'Gurub. *Tome of Conjure Water IX - Level 70 spell learned from a Tome that drops in Outland. Restores 7200 mana over 30 seconds. Spells by level Footnotes * = Spell acquired by talents. The first level it appears is the minimum required to reach it. * + Known at character creation. * @ Spell acquired via a tome or quest instead of at the trainer. See the spell for more information on how to obtain it. * Many damage spells scale slightly with level after training them.